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Post by insomniac on Sept 29, 2006 10:17:46 GMT
But it's not so far advanced beyond bolt-action rifles that it would seem absurd in the adventure, if a proper explanation was provided for its presence.
The idea of absurdly futuristic technology in a Kai adventure just made me think of an H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds" scenario, where martians in giant tripods invade Magnamund.
On Earth, yes, but not necessarily on Magnamund. Consider this: what if a highly secretive guild, possessing resources unavailable to others, discovered how to produce a semi-automatic rifle, then only entrusted the finished products to the Kai, who have made it a point to never let one be captured?
There are going to be machine guns, but as currently planned the lightest will take 3 men to transport and operate (1 to shoot the gun, one to load the gun, and a mechanic to keep it cool, carry and install spare parts, and clear jams), while anti-aircraft guns will take 26 men to transport, when not being pulled by horses or trucks. This will mean the player won't ever be lugging around his own personal machine gun, though he may be part of a crew at some point.
As far as the assault rifle, I am not sure if it will be immediately coming up or not. Technology develops very slowly in Magnamund; much of what I'm putting in the book is not the product of the same rapid technological evolution after the Renaissance that happened on Earth. There are various reasons why technology develops more slowly on Magnamund; for one, there is magic, which provides an adequate alternative to certain technologies and thus a disincentive to spend time researching them, and encourage a culture that doesn't embrace scientific rationalism or produce many scientists.
I think the rules I've thought up cover those points. The submachine gun can shoot up to 6 bullets in a round. The first bullet has a -2 Firearms Skill to hit, the second has a -3 to hit, and so on until -7. You can get a rifle stock for it that helps control the recoil and reduces the initial Firearms Skill penalty to -1, but makes it a larger weapon (can only have one submachine gun with stock, or shotgun, or a rifle). The increasing penalty simulates the recoil, but it still remains true that against most targets, you're more likely to hit if you fire more than one shot. Unless you have a high Firearms Skill or pick a luckily high Random Number, most of the later shots would probably miss, which simulates your points about 3-shot bursts being wisest and submachine guns requiring skill (or luck).
But anyway, I just don't think the Kai would have a Weaponskill discipline that covers submachine guns. They don't even have a Weaponskill discipline for crossbows in the original books. It just doesn't sound right. There is a Weaponskill disciplines for pistols, rifles, and sniper weapons, however, as well as crossbows (for now, but I might take crossbows out).
I plan to make shotguns useful at short to medium range against unarmored targets, but almost useless against armored targets and long-range targets.
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Moo
Kai Lord
Mooooooo
Posts: 101
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Post by Moo on Sept 29, 2006 19:07:43 GMT
I guess something like that works. Although, if I were them, I'd try to make the rifle look as much like a standard bolt-action as possible, so that the enemy wouldn't think to take it apart, if captured. Sounds reasonable to me. Do you have a rule like "if you roll a zero, the gun jams," or is jamming handled through text? 1 in 10 may be a little high of a chance unless they're really primitive, though (which is ironic since the simplest designs, like the Sten Gun and Grease Gun, are also the most reliable, but historically they weren't invented until after WWI, because the older submachine guns were too expensive to make). I'd say that should depend on whether or not silencers exist. It would be absolutely awesome if you could fit the DeLisle carbine in somehow. www.valkyriearms.com/delisle.htm Oh, and go here www.subguns.org/products/cans/ATAS/ and scroll down for a video clip of what a suppressed .45 actually sounds like. That ridiculous noise silencers make in movies drives me crazy.
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Post by insomniac on Oct 1, 2006 3:05:30 GMT
I've got two ideas on how to handle jamming. The first is: require the player to pick a random number for each shot fired by the submachine gun; if any number is the same as the one immediately preceeding it, the gun jams. So, for example, if you decided to fire four shots, then picked 7, 6, and then 6 again, the gun would jam when you pick the second 6 and you wouldn't get off the third or fourth shot. This system is simple, but there's a 1 in 10 chance of jamming, and that seems high.
The second idea: the gun might jam if you pick a 0. If a 0 is picked, pick another random number. If the new random number is even, the gun jams. If it's odd, the gun doesn't jam and instead, if the bullet hits it does 10 damage (because 0 = 10 for that roll). This system is kind of nice because it makes a 0 have a 50/50 chance of being either the best or the worst roll.
I'll have to see which system works better in actual gameplay before I decide. If the submachine gun jams too frequently it will be overly frustrating for the player.
So far, I'm basing the submachine guns on the earliest Italian models. They have the right appearance, since they don't look much like later submachine guns (they look a bit like shotguns, to me). I had the MP18 in mind, but it already has a rifle stock...and, I think it jammed like crazy. Maybe that'll be useful for gameplay, actually, since it will give more chances for close combat.
I've planned to have silencers for rifles, submachine guns, and some pistols. I know that silencers don't truly "silence" a gun, they just muffle the sound a little bit. I planned to have silencers give only +1 or +2 to the random number picked to see if a shot is heard by an enemy. That's actually the reason I decided to have crossbows in the game - their advantage is that they're totally silent. It's the only reason someone would use a crossbow in an era where rifles and pistols are available.
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Post by Gazguz on Oct 2, 2006 1:27:24 GMT
I have a .22 with a silencer and all you can hear when it is fired is the click of the action and the thud of the bullet hitting the target.
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Moo
Kai Lord
Mooooooo
Posts: 101
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Post by Moo on Oct 2, 2006 6:29:01 GMT
So you're combining the hit roll with the damage roll? I'm actually working on designing a complete pen and paper RPG system (which uses nothing but percentiles, rather than a crazy assortment of dice, or just D6s, like the most popular systems), and considered doing something like that. But the problem is, if you've got a very low chance to hit, you either miss completely or do close to the maximum damage, which doesn't make much sense. The more logical alternative, doing some math and figuring out a percent based on how much you exceeded the minimum (i.e., if you need to roll 20 or above to hit, and you roll a 60, that's 50% of maximum damage because (60-20)/(100-20)=0.5), but that would be too complex and time-consuming.
How well a silencer works depends mostly on tech level, quality, and size. Size always works well, with or without the first two. For WWI level technology, I'd say something the size of the DeLisle carbine, firing a similar low-pressure, large-caliber pistol round, would make about as much noise as dropping a very large book on a wooden floor. Historically, that's about how loud the DeLisle was, anyway. But if you've got a really effective one, on a smaller caliber, weaker gun, as Gazguz said, all you're left with is whatever noise the gun itself makes, and the noise the bullet makes (neither of which are that ridiculous "pewt" sound).
Although if the bullet is supersonic (greater than the speed of sound, approximately 1130 fps at sea level), it will make a "crack" sound, kind of like a whip, only much louder. But this is actually an advantage in many cases, because the sonic crack originates from the bullet, not the shooter. So if you miss to someone's right, they'll hear a crack coming from somewhere to their right, not from the direction you fired. That could be very useful for a puzzle or something in your book.
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Post by insomniac on Oct 2, 2006 13:17:51 GMT
No, that was a typo. I meant to write that a Random Number of 0 is either a jam or a 10, the highest possible modifier to the Firearms Skill you can get from a Random Number.
I'm going to keep it simply; a shot will either do 1 Random Number of damage, or a Random Number x2, or x3, or divided in half. No equations more complex than that.
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Post by avarius on Feb 6, 2007 23:51:07 GMT
Reading through this thread I can't help but to be impressed with the exchanges of info. You all seem to possess highly developed intellectual skills and, an almost, fanatical knowledge of your range of topics (ballistics esp lol).
Insomniac, very, very fascinated with your idea of bringing Magnumund some 2000-plus years into the future and would be very interested in reading a copy of one of your gamebooks. Vassagonia's dissemination into smaller kingdoms is a nice touch, any other major economic or political upheavals? Also, have the ensuing centuries led to the rise of another great evil?
Thinking of writing a short gamebook for my own gratification (nothing to do with LW, it'll be about a boxer in the late forties) and have taken note of the tips above, especially the one about being concise, which has never come naturally to me.
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Post by longhairyuppiescum on Feb 7, 2007 0:16:40 GMT
... it'll be about a boxer in the late forties... Sounds promising! Will you publish it when it's finished?
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Post by insomniac on Feb 7, 2007 0:22:34 GMT
Reading through this thread I can't help but to be impressed with the exchanges of info. You all seem to possess highly developed intellectual skills and, an almost, fanatical knowledge of your range of topics (ballistics esp lol). Insomniac, very, very fascinated with your idea of bringing Magnumund some 2000-plus years into the future and would be very interested in reading a copy of one of your gamebooks. Vassagonia's dissemination into smaller kingdoms is a nice touch, any other major economic or political upheavals? Also, have the ensuing centuries led to the rise of another great evil? Thanks, and I may write a short adventure in such a setting, but for now I am working on another project. The steampunk Kai adventure could be very good but it's an extremely time-intensive project. Also, it's fan fiction and much of it isn't my original idea. When I had an original idea for a gamebook I decided to write that one first. I also began to question the plot I had devised for my steampunk Kai adventure. It may be too over-the-top. It's also a bit cliched, odd enough as that is given the weirdness of the setting. I would definitely need to think of a new over-arching plot. I don't want to just make up some demonic creature and say "You've got to kill it before its armies invade Sommerlund." The plot would involve war, most likely, since it's set in a WWI-like world, but I want to focus more on Naar's power to seduce and corrupt than his power to destroy with brute force. Check the thread "Gamebook Rules" in the General Discussion section for details of my current project.
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Post by insomniac on Feb 7, 2007 0:34:53 GMT
Vassagonia's dissemination into smaller kingdoms is a nice touch, any other major economic or political upheavals? Yeah. Sommerlund (like Britain circa WWI) is going to have protectorates, perhaps including Magador, that it is occupying after defeating them in a prior war. These are each governed by a Lord Protector. Sommerlund's territory has extended far into the former Darklands, much of which have been reclaimed and restored to their natural state. Sommerlund has a Parliament, but it is advisory. Its form of government is still a benign monarchy. There's an elaborate treaty that governs the rights of nobles, including Kai Lords, and protects them from infringement by a certain powerful guild, The Brotherhood of the Iron Sun, details of which shall wait for a later time. Well, if I keep the central element of my old plot idea the answer would be "yes, but it's disguised." Any details you want to reveal?
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Post by avarius on Feb 7, 2007 12:24:57 GMT
Back again. Firstly thanks for the response and also divulging a few more details about the future of your Magnumund, Insomniac. I applaud the fact that you have not just gone ahead an thrown in some arbitrary demonic entity, just for the sake of occupying the niche. One thing I'm curious about though, how has magic evolved? For example, can they now use synthetic shadow gates as personal transport, to teleport from A to B?
Details about my proposed gamebook are a bit scarce at the mo. Since this will be my first attempt at creating a GB, I thought it would be best to experiment on a subject that I am familiar with.
Setting of the late Forties appealed to me because it was a very raw time for the human race. The losses incurred in WW II, adapting to peacetime, restoring economic stability, etc. People had, had their fill of war and started to look elsewhere for acts of heroism, sports began to thrive and boxing was possibly the most important sport in the world at that time.
The book itself will be short (25-50 entries), text light (meaning no overindulging in exposition or descriptive passages) and answer whether or not I'm cabable of writing a GB at all.
P.S After I've read the details of The Kai Steampunk Adventure I'll come back here and offer some feedback. Gotta go to work now. Back later.
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Post by insomniac on Feb 7, 2007 23:02:31 GMT
One thing I'm curious about though, how has magic evolved? For example, can they now use synthetic shadow gates as personal transport, to teleport from A to B? Magic has evolved more protections against modern weapons like bullets. That will allow the player to survive without hiding in a trench all the time. The "airship" magic of the LW world has also progressed. The flying longships of the original series have grown in size; some have two or more mages piloting them. They are now the world's equivalent of Zeppelins. Maybe you could work some fictional elements into the story? For example, it's the end of WWII, and for most of the book everything seems normal, but then you drop in some detail like "the Nazis beat the USSR and the US is in a cold war with the European Reich." That wouldn't necessarily affect the plot, but it could. Let's say, for example, the boxer is a veteran and his opponent in an American fascist who wants a fascist government in the States, and if he wins the boxing championship it will be a major boost to the American Fascist cause, therefore there's more than just your personal career at stake when you're training for that fight.
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Post by avarius on Feb 7, 2007 23:39:23 GMT
Thankyou for the ideas insomniac but I think that, as this is my initial stab at writing a gamebook I'll try and keep it as dumbed down as possible. Nevertheless the idea of a veteran having to try and come to terms with the fact that his cultural identity has been rendered obsolete by a new fascist regime is an interesting and, potentially, very flexible concept. A bit like the Normans and Saxons in the 12th century.
I couldn't find a thing on the steampunk kai adventure but I did discover a thread about one of your other projects and dropped an observation into the mix. Hope it wasn't too impertinent, lol. Still what you've accomplished so far has obviously taken a lot of effort and time, do you think you could find a way of getting it published?
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Post by Zipp on Feb 8, 2007 0:16:44 GMT
Thankyou for the ideas insomniac but I think that, as this is my initial stab at writing a gamebook I'll try and keep it as dumbed down as possible. Nevertheless the idea of a veteran having to try and come to terms with the fact that his cultural identity has been rendered obsolete by a new fascist regime is an interesting and, potentially, very flexible concept. A bit like the Normans and Saxons in the 12th century. I couldn't find a thing on the steampunk kai adventure but I did discover a thread about one of your other projects and dropped an observation into the mix. Hope it wasn't too impertinent, lol. Still what you've accomplished so far has obviously taken a lot of effort and time, do you think you could find a way of getting it published? Well, he'd have to actually write the gamebook, first ^_^ Unless we all want to band together and publish a book of rules. We've come up with so many systems between us...
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Post by Doomy on Feb 8, 2007 0:20:46 GMT
Come to think of it, isn't that the reason why a lot of gamebooks have two authors? One writes the "game," the other writes the "book". Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson used to work like that, I believe.
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